


Spark

by solarfemm



Category: Captain Marvel (2019)
Genre: F/F, Sexual Content, Vague descriptions of violence, do not copy to another site, mention of alcoholism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:21:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22065433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/solarfemm/pseuds/solarfemm
Summary: By the time she comes back, it’s been two years. Two whole years of war, fighting, bloodshed, diplomacy, politics, technological advances, and seeing families torn apart. It’s a hot Louisiana summer and the air is thick with the trill of crickets and mosquitoes buzzing. The plane is still there, still in pristine condition, and so is a new Mustang, flaming red with fat tyres. The house is unchanged, and it brings a fresh wave of nostalgia for a place she is already in.
Relationships: Carol Danvers/Maria Rambeau
Comments: 9
Kudos: 90





	Spark

**Author's Note:**

> thank you to my baby nikki for the beta

The first time Carol sees Maria again, she feels their connection before she knows what it means.

For the six years she could remember, there was a hole inside her chest, a mass of loneliness that threatened to overwhelm her if she let it, an emptiness the size and shape of the life she knew nothing about before Yon-Rogg found her, before Hala. Not thinking about it was easy, until the dead of night when she couldn’t sleep. The emptiness was always there, waiting.

When she sees Maria again, the emptiness calls out like the cry of a lyrebird, and she knows that the hole is in the shape of Maria.

~

They take a moment as Norex modifies the quadjet. Maria pulls her aside with a hand on her elbow, taking her into the living room, and the touch is both branding and a soothing balm. The house they’re in has so much memory, from the pictures on the cupboards to the clothes scattered around, strewn carelessly as though they have all the time in the world to pick them back up. Carol aches at what she sees—at the clothes and at the worry in Maria’s eyes.

“I meant what I said about you being the best person I knew.”

Carol smiles, even though it’s not enough to convey what she feels. There are years of love and history between them, stolen glances and kisses in dorms and behind doors, years of knowing each other as well as they know themselves, and all that was taken from Carol in an instant. 

“I know. I just wish I could remember everything.”

Maria brushes Carol’s hair back behind her ear, and Carol aches at that too. She tries not to lean into it, because it’s been years for them both, and maybe they’re not at the same place they were when Carol disappeared.

“It’s okay, even if you don’t.” Maria sounds so sure of herself, and Carol wishes she could have her certainty. It’s a pillar she can lean on, if she wants to.

“I want to.” This she is sure of. She has been the lover lost, and now she wants to come home. She wants to ask the question, _would you still love me, even if I didn’t remember you?_ , but she’s afraid of the answer. She’s afraid of the weakness it would show to ask. “I remember you. I remember us—some of it.” 

Carol takes Maria’s hands in her own, trimmed nails, calloused palms, holding the weight of a family together. 

“I remember how much I love you. That hasn’t gone away.”

Relief washes over Maria’s expression. She even smiles a little in the face of this bitch of a situation. Carol glances at the picture on the shelf in the living room—Monica on Carol’s lap, one year old, and Carol with a party hat on her head. Maria took the photo, and she smiled the whole time. 

“I know, baby. It sucks, but I know. You would’ve been here if you could.”

Carol feels her throat grow tight. “I want to remember everything. I still don’t know who I am, not entirely.”

Maria clutches Carol’s hands tighter, as if willing will make it so. “Let’s just hope you can, then, huh?”

Carol nods. Not even Maria’s love can bring back everything, and Carol is tired. Tired of fighting, tired of losing. She wants to be here, with Maria and Monica. She wants to be a mom again, a partner, not a warrior.

But they have to finish this first.

~

Being back in a cockpit with Maria is exhilarating in a way that travelling through galaxies and to different planets with Starforce had almost been. She feels herself start to float in her seat before the strap catches her, and looks over to find Maria doing the same. She reaches over to grab Maria’s hand, rubbing a thumb over her knuckles. She doesn’t have the memories, but she can do this.

“Is this what you thought it would be?” Carol asks. 

Maria laughs, a bright, infectious sound that catches Carol off-guard. She loves this woman so much. “Hmm, I’d say better.”

“This is something even working for SHIELD doesn’t prepare you for,” Fury says, but Carol’s still looking at Maria, at the wide-eyed wonder on her face. If she could, Carol would make Maria look like that every day.

~

Carol has to go. There are so many people in need, so many planets that need help, more than earth does. Planets at risk of extinction, civil war, under attack from different species.

She’s so exhilarated from being fully in control of her powers that she doesn’t realise what it means to leave earth again, this time of her own volition. She’s halfway out of the galaxy before she thinks about it.

How long will it be before she sees them again? Monica—she could be grown up by then, and no longer needing her Aunty Carol. Maria might move on. Carol had taken off so quickly they didn’t even talk about it, but now the anxiety is real that Carol could be so caught up in what she needs to do that Maria might find someone else.

And why shouldn’t she? Just because she didn’t the first time Carol left doesn’t mean she won’t now. It wouldn’t be fair of Carol to expect her not to. 

She flies past planets and suns and solar systems, feeling the emptiness of space press around her, as if to match the emptiness she filled on earth.

~

By the time she comes back, it’s been two years. Two whole years of war, fighting, bloodshed, diplomacy, politics, technological advances, and seeing families torn apart. It’s a hot Louisiana summer and the air is thick with the trill of crickets and mosquitoes buzzing. The plane is still there, still in pristine condition, and so is a new Mustang, flaming red with fat tyres. The house is unchanged, and it brings a fresh wave of nostalgia for a place she is already in.

When she comes back, Monica is visibly older, and older in the things she says, her way of thinking, her view of the world. She still rushes out as soon as she hears Carol land to hug her, already taller, brighter-eyed. Her hair is styled in box braids, a lot different to the short hair Maria sported throughout the entire time Carol knew her.

“Hey, Lieutenant Trouble.”

“Aunty Carol! No one calls me that anymore.”

Carol’s breath catches in her throat. She’s missed so much. “Oh? What do they call you?”

“Just Monica, or Mon. My best friend Daphne calls me Monnie, because it rhymes. She’s kind of an idiot.”

Carol relaxes into the hug. She’s tired from seeing the things she’s seen, not in her body but her mind, and all she wants to do is be with her family. Monica pulls her into the house, yelling to her mother that Aunty Carol is here, and Carol feels her trepidation grow with each step.

When she sees Maria again, the emptiness inside her yearns. 

There’s a moment that stretches between them where Maria drops the dish towel she was holding on the kitchen floor and stares at Carol while Monica tugs on her hand. Carol’s breath catches in her throat and she thinks, not for the last time, _What if it’s been too long? What if she doesn’t want me here?_

But the moment is swallowed when Maria rushes over and pulls her into a hug.

“You were gone so long,” Maria says, as Carol feels the tears well up in her eyes. “I missed you—so much.”

Carol pulls her close, the tears spilling over and sliding down her face and over Maria’s bare shoulder and the spaghetti strap of her shirt, clutching onto her waist.

“I didn’t mean to be gone that long.” Her voice is mucus-thick, and Maria pulls back to take Carol’s face in her hands, thumbing the tears away. Her touch is soft, an anchor to keep Carol grounded in case she takes flight again. “Achernon is a shit hole but it needed help. I just couldn’t leave them. That’s my job, right? To save people? They were dying, for two years, and I just couldn’t—”

Maria rests their foreheads together and hushes her until Carol falls silent, her only noises the soft hiccoughs of her breath as more tears fall. “Carol, you did everything you could. You come home when the job is done. You know that. They need you more than we do. But you always come home, okay?”

Carol nods, feeling the press of Maria’s forehead and hands, not burning now but soothing the hurts Carol has from two years of constant war.

She doesn’t need to eat anymore, but Maria still makes room at the table and they all eat together, home-made with fresh vegetables from the garden Maria plants but Monica waters everyday. Monica talks about her friends at school and how math is too easy for her so they put her in the advanced class. Maria talks about seeing her parents the weekend before, how they still keep busy with church, but Maria and Monica decided they don’t want to go anymore. 

They’ve built a life for themselves that doesn’t include Carol, and shouldn’t include this Carol, who’s one step from losing it completely and stares out at nothing just as much as she listens. She’s still half a galaxy away. Maybe she never really will come home.

After homework, Monica tries to stay up as late as she can, but Maria puts her to bed when she starts falling asleep in front of the tv. Carol has a shower and changes into some spare clothes, feeling the softness of them, worn from years of being passed from Maria to Monica and now to Carol. She has half a mind to sleep in the guest room, but Maria pulls her into the main bedroom and pushes her into it. She goes willingly, unable to stop her heart beating faster when Maria lies down next to her.

“If you want to see someone else—” Carol starts, before Maria says, “There’s only one person I want to see, even if she is on a different planet.”

Carol feels for Maria’s hand, bringing to her lips to kiss the knuckles. Maria’s hand is warmer than the embrace of the stars. 

~

Carol wakes up in the afternoon when Monica is presumably at school, and wanders down into the kitchen with her hair in disarray and her eyes full of gunk. She doesn’t need to sleep either, but she did, and it was glorious. She reaches for the coffee pot first thing, even before she can fully see. 

The first sip tastes like an elixir. Whatever passed for a beverage that didn’t inebriate her tasted like dirt, and she’d been drinking it with the rest of the Achernonians like it was mother’s milk because it was better than boiled water.

Maria takes her coffee seriously, and it shows. 

Carol is slightly more awake by the time Maria comes back in, sunhat and gardening gloves on, carrying a wicker basket full of vegetables. 

“Oh,” she says, startled. “I didn’t expect you to be awake.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to sleep so much. How long was I out?”

“About four days,” Maria says, and Carol inhales a sip of coffee. It goes into her lungs and comes out her nose and mouth and Maria laughs while she comes over to pat her back. “You okay, honey?”

Carol stops coughing long enough to answer. “Yeah—four days? I didn’t think I needed to sleep at all.”

“Well, I guess something must have shaken loose because you were out cold. You definitely need a proper shower, not a five-minute spritz. I don’t know what you got up to on Achernon but it wasn’t clean living.”

She passes Carol a towel from the sink to wipe herself down with. 

“I made do. Not a lot of hot water in a warzone.”

“No need to tell me. There is a war in Afghanistan, you know.”

Carol sighs. “I’ve missed a lot, haven’t I?”

Maria puts down the vegetables and leans her hands on the kitchen table. She suddenly looks a lot older than Carol remembers. “Yeah, you have.”

Carol leans over to her and takes one of her hands. “Wanna tell me about it?”

~

Carol is getting better now at thinking towards the future. It used to be a struggle when all she could see was the next flight, and then the next mission, and it still comes in starts and stops, but she can see when she looks at Monica just how big she’s getting and how smart she is and she knows that college will be a breeze for her, just like it was for her mom. Monica reads at the pace of a 16 year old on the honor roll and Maria looks fit to burst with how proud she is of her. Carol is proud too.

She sticks around for a couple weeks, knowing the longer she stays the worse things are for everyone she could be helping. She manages her guilt about the wars and diplomacy and genocides by telling herself she’s allowed to want things for herself for once. She helps out in the garden, which is more like a whole backyard full of vegetables, enough that they could last for weeks with a decent freezer, which they have. Maria kisses her in front of the corn stalks and Carol almost cries again.

They visit Maria’s parents, and her mom tells her in no uncertain terms that she better be good to her daughter after disappearing on her for six years. Carol can’t tell them the truth—she, Maria and Monica decided Maria’s parents don’t need the burden of knowing aliens exist. 

The drive back home is quiet, Monica sleeping in the backseat for four hours of the five after playing her Gameboy until the batteries ran out. 

“It’s just for now,” Maria says, and Carol nods. “There’s no use worrying them.” 

Carol leans her head against the window, and it bounces but it’s cool. She runs hot nowadays, and they always have the air conditioning on for her. “To hell with the electricity bill,” Maria says. It’s just one way they’re making allowances for her.

Carol doesn’t really know what she’s doing right now. She wants to be with them, she does, but she knows what her presence must be doing—knows that they’re waiting for the other shoe to drop and for her to leave them again. Most nights she thinks of sneaking off before they wake up, but she’s too much of a coward to even be a coward. So she stays.

~

Maria doesn’t need any help in the kitchen, so Monica and Carol do things like set the table, make juice enough for the three of them, play card games to keep themselves occupied until dinner, and wash up afterwards. As Carol’s washing the dishes while Monica dries, she’s reminded of being there with Fury two years ago. He hasn’t used the beeper since, which means the earth hasn’t been attacked or invaded, but it’s only a matter of time. The Skrull and Kree came to earth once, so it stands to reason that others would come, too. 

She thinks too long about this that Monica nudges her and pushes her aside with an, “I’ll do it,” heaving a sigh, and Carol laughs. She kisses the top of Monica’s head, now tall enough without her having to lean down as much. 

She gets a whiff of Monica’s hair and suddenly it’s eight years ago, Monica’s just out of her toddler years, and she’s crying after having skinned her knee running around the carport. She’s clutching onto Carol’s shirt, snot and tears dribbling down her face and blood dribbling down her leg as Carol carries her back to the house. 

Carol’s not fragile—youngest of three, daughter of an abusive alcoholic, joined the USAF when women were still being told they weren’t shit—but she feels Monica’s pain as viscerally as if it was happening to her. When she looks at Monica she feels a fierce protectiveness too, and knows she would do anything to help her.

The only thing she can do is patch her up and tell her that it hurts right now, but look, it’s only a scratch, see? And Monica stops crying long enough to look as Carol wipes the blood away. It’s not deep, but it does sting, especially when Carol wipes antiseptic lotion on it. 

Carol gets thrown back into the present by a splash of water on her face, and then it’s business as usual as she tickles Monica until she cries. 

~

Maria touches her a lot. Casual touches, hand on shoulder, on arm, on base of spine, brushing back hair, forehead feeling, temperature rising and Carol breathless on the tail end of this comet that’s been dragging her back to Maria, back back and up.

~

One night they’re in Maria’s bed and neither of them can sleep. They said goodnight ten minutes ago, but the air is charged with electricity thick and heavy, more than just the humidity. Maria turns onto her side to face Carol, and Carol reaches for her at the same time, and then they’re kissing again, the second time since 1989. 

Carol feels the floodgates of her emotions opening as she gasps into the kiss, as Maria’s hands roam over her body and the soft cotton covering it. She welcomes the touch as Maria slides her hand under Carol’s shirt to feel her stomach muscles and then higher, cupping Carol’s breast and thumbing across her nipple until it peaks. 

Carol gasps at the touch, aching in her core where Maria slips her fingers, crying out with the joy of it all.

~

The world is different in the late nineties than it was ten years ago. It’s more connected than ever, more advanced, colder in some ways but warmer in others. Sentiments are changing, and while it’s easier for an inter-racial, gay couple to hold hands in public, it’s slow going. 

Maria still has to hold Carol back from fighting every homophobe, racist or both that calls out at them from their pick up when they’re parking the car at Pancho’s, and while Carol could technically fight Maria off, it’s not worth it, and she knows this. 

It doesn’t stop the lizard part of her brain that itches for a fight, though. That part is ingrained in her, developed by birth but honed by every rope jump, spar hit, punch out, and backwater redneck who shows their true colors. 

Mike greets them both with a beer for Maria and a whiskey for Carol, telling them not to worry about it, but Carol still bristles so Maria orders for them both. 

“Seriously, stop.” Maria reaches across to still Carol’s hand where it’s balled on the table.

Carol immediately flinches back. “Maria, don’t. I don’t want to hurt you, but sometimes I can’t—”

Maria sits back with a look. “You’re going to tell me you can’t control yourself? Carol, I know that. You’re as hot headed as they come. But you wouldn’t hurt me, and I know that as well.”

Carol looks down at her hand, still balled, and flattens it on the table. “Maybe we can try something else.” 

“Like?” 

Carol lifts the corner of her mouth up in a smile. “Safeword?”

Their burgers come, they say thanks to the waiter, and Maria picks up a fry to inspect it. 

“How about I throw fries at your head until you calm down?”

“Can’t risk it, there won’t always be fries.”

Maria narrows her eyes in suspicion. “Dirt then. There’s always dirt.”

Carol laughs, she can’t help it. This woman, she knows, is the one she loves. There are many galaxies, many planets, many solar systems, but Maria is the only woman she has ever loved, and probably the only woman she will ever love. 

But that’s a big thing to think about, so she hooks her ankle around Maria’s and lets her throw fries at her head.

~

Monica is older, now. At 18, she sees the world differently than either Maria or Carol did at her age, and she’s testier than the last time Carol saw her.

She doesn’t greet Carol when she flies in, but she does look up from her phone. 

“Mom,” she calls out, as Carol lands in the driveway. She and Maria are in the carport, working on Maria’s mustang, and Maria looks up from beneath the hood, an expression so fond Carol’s heart almost stops.

“You’re a bit late,” Monica says, but Maria comes over to give Carol a hug, and Carol just about collapses in her arms.

It’s been three years. The things she’s seen in those three years—all she’s wanted to do is come home, and now she’s here. She starts crying again, the way she hasn’t been able to since she left. No one will listen to a teary-eyed commander. She has to be strong, dominant, aggressive.

But not here. Here she can just be Carol.

Maria lets her cry into her shoulder for a few minutes until Monica comes over to join in, and then they’re all crying fat, messy, snotty tears. 

“Are you staying for dinner?” Maria asks, and it’s all Carol can do to nod. Maria brushes the tears back with her thumbs, and then they’re both laughing. 

Carol does collapse then, but she brings Maria with her, both of them falling in a heap on the grass, and it’s like it used to be, before Monica was born and they would love each other sideways, their laughter echoing out louder than the hum of crickets around them. 

“Stop!” Monica says. “You’re both so embarrassing.”

Carol and Maria disentangle themselves and carry each other back to the house, Monica following and rolling her eyes every time Carol looks back at her. 

At dinner, when Carol asks her about how school is going, Monica replies, “I’m over it. It’s too easy. I’ve been considering dropping out but someone won’t let me.” She’s calm about this, as if she’s given a great deal of thought to something that affects her entire life. Carol wants to tell her she’s too young to decide something like that, but then again she dropped out of school at 17 to join the USAF, and there she met Maria. 

Maria almost goes binary with fury. “You’ll drop out of high school over my dead body. How are you supposed to go to college if you don’t finish high school?”

Monica shrugs and adds more sweet potato mash to her plate. “GED.”

Maria has to try very hard to keep calm, and Carol appreciates the effort it takes. “Sweetheart, we talked about this.”

“I know. That’s why I haven’t done it yet.”

The word “yet” sparks a reaction in Maria that Carol could probably hear from the next planet. Monica seems unphased by it and continues to eat her food and Maria tries to collect herself.

It’s not what Carol expected for her first night back, but she’s missed so much. She doesn’t know them anymore. Monica is a tall, willowy beauty, her hair in braids down past her waist. Carol wants to make a joke about how all the boys must want her, but the sentence dies in her throat before it can escape. 

They continue their meal, and talk as if nothing happened. Monica wants to start a rescue for abandoned dogs. Maria’s opened her own garage now instead of working at Tom’s, and spends most of her days there. She gives out most of what she grows in the backyard to the local youth group, who sell it to raise money for some sort of camp they gone on every year. Carol asks if Monica went on the camp, and Monica gives her a look like it’s a stupid question. 

Carol feels more out of place than she’s ever felt. The constant sense of paranoia prickles at her edges, the feeling that the walls will cave in, the roof will collapse, the floor will be ripped out from under them. She flinches at the sound of Maria dropping her fork onto her plate. She stalks past unlit doorways. 

Danger lurks in every corner, her instincts scream, but she’s tired. Bone-sore, marrow-deep tired that not even Maria’s wandering, careful hands can heal. 

That night, her release happens quickly and it’s so good it’s almost painful, too overwhelming for her to return the favor before she falls asleep on Maria’s chest, grateful, tender, fizzled. In the morning, Maria is in the living room, reading by the open window as the breeze plays through the house in a tinkering gust. The sun shines onto the pages of her book as Carol comes around to kiss her, and she’s swept up in it, the sun and the breeze and the kiss, Maria’s soft lips on her own, with nowhere to be and nothing to take her away from the moment.


End file.
